Federally funded health centers are making strides adopting and using electronic health records (EHRs) to treat some of the nation’s poorest and most at-risk patients since the enactment of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, according to a new first-of-its-kind study.
We know that health IT can help improve care quality. ONC and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) are working hard to ensure that all providers adopt and use EHRs. In the past, some researchers 
found that there might be a digital divide in health IT use, meaning that providers who mostly serve certain groups of people – particularly the poor and racial/ethnic minorities or people in rural areas – may be using health IT less than others.
Community health centers remain the largest provider of health care to underserved individuals in the US. They provide health care to more than 20 million Americans every year, including many who are poor, uninsured, or have no regular source of care.
In the past, health centers used health IT at a lower rate than other providers. In 2006, a survey showed that only 26% of health centers had any EHR capacity at all.
To ensure that the benefits of health IT and care transformation be available to all Americans, regardless of insurance, wealth, or location, the HITECH Act provided federal resources to help health centers adopt EHRs.
